| H42.2730 PERFORMANCE WORKSHOP:
GOING VIRTUAL (Spring 2001) NYU: Performance Studies Room 630 - Friday 10:00am-1:00pm |
MARTHA WILSON
& TONI SANT |
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OFFICE HOURS (Room 627):
MARTHA WILSON: Friday 9-10am TONI SANT: Friday 1-2pm EMAIL: Toni Sant |
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Over the past decade the Internet has often been explored as a site for performance, first through the medium of text and later with graphic browsers and applications using multimedia over faster modems. The present moment compares with the "golden age" of American avant-garde practice in the 70s, when artists were encouraged to experiment wildly. The Internet is still a wide open frontier with very few fences in place. This workshop explores how performers can exploit this new medium as well as raise questions on the artistic, legal, political and economic implications of broadcasting over the Internet, with special emphasis on liveness and the ontology of performance.
What happens when live performance is mediatized via the Internet? Performers are often unwilling (perhaps because they view their Bodies as their instruments) to make the leap from the human body to the body of the Internet, with its parallel circulatory system and interactivity. Rather than merely using the world wide web as a broadcasting medium for existing work (or even works which would loose little without the wired component) this workshop explores the online world as a new performance/art medium. Martha Wilson is the Founding Director for Franklin Furnace which after twenty years of promoting performance art in New York City and standing up for the right of artists to freedom of expression is now presenting new time-based art to worldwide audiences on the Internet. Toni Sant worked as a professional broadcaster in Europe for more than a decade before coming to NYC to focus on the Internet as a venue for performance. Together they approach ideas of performance going virtual from two significant perspectives: historical and practical. Students will analyze and digitize existing performance art footage by artists of the 70s, 80s and 90s from the Franklin Furnace Archives ranging from early feminist performances by Susan Mogul, to Teh-Ching Hsieh's year-long "time clock" performance, to "culture wars" performances by Annie Sprinkle and Ron Athey. The semester will culminate in individual student-generated performance work or collaborations. |